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Samsung Galaxy Beam Android projector phone review

Putting on a display

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Ceiling whacks – NSFW?

You can also use the stand to hold the phone upright and beam images onto the ceiling, which raises all manner of hands-free possibilities. You can also project image and sound combos using any local media files. For instance, you can have a slideshow of your gallery pictures play to your own choice of musical backing.

The real reason behind buying a Galaxy Beam

Each battery is good for around 3hrs of maximum brightness projector activity. Of course, if you don’t use the projector, a full charge will keep you going for well over two days. Lest we forget, the projector makes one helluva torch – perfect for navigating that post-curry dark woodland path.

Showing directions from the boozer to the nearest curry house, midnight rambles and a crafty hand shandy aside, I can’t actually think of that many real world situations in which I’d want to use the Beam. But if you can’t think of any either you probably won’t consider buying one to start with.

Second coming: Samsung's latest Beam is an appealing idea but do you really need one?

Verdict

While the projector part of the handset works rather well, the Beam is much more expensive than the otherwise technically similar Galaxy S Advance. It also has an LCD rather than AMOLED screen and is still lumbered with Gingerbread. Granted, if you want to turn your iPhone into a projector you need to cough up around £150 for a decent adaptor like Aiptek’s MobileCinema i15 but at least you can remove it when not in use. ®